Political parties in breach of law...

received no response.

Timothy Jonas of ANUG when contacted acknowledged that they had failed to comply.

“This is an obligation that must be honoured unfortunately ANUG has not yet complied. ANUG has been operating on a shoestring budget consequently we do not have an accountant on retainer to swiftly compile the information but we will get it done,” Jonas explained.

He noted that the regulation which calls for all spending in excess of $100 to be reported with an accompanying receipt makes the process a tedious one.

“The amount contemplated is outdated and ridiculously small,” he said.

Robert Badal of Change Guyana also indicated that his party has not complied.

“I saw it in the papers and we will move to comply,” he said when contacted.

Calls to the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic ( PPP/ C) party agent Zulfikar Mustapha went unanswered as did calls to APNU+AFC agent Joseph Harmon. APNU+AFC campaign co-chair Raphael Trotman was also unreachable as was Presidential Candidate of The Citizen’s Initiative Rondha Lam.

Ram in his letter to Singh pointed out that according to Section 120 of the Representation of the People Act, the election agent of each group of candidates has to forward to the Chief Election Officer a return in Form 26 of the Act.

He pointed out that this return was due no later than 35 days following the declaration of the result which would have been September 7th. Ram also pointed out that in the absence of an authorised excuse the failure to comply “constitutes an illegal practice”.

Section 124 however grants clemency to those who failed to submit based on any of a set of stated criteria including inadvertence or some other reasonable cause of a like nature as long as it “did not arise from any want of good faith”.

Percival)